AUCKLAND, July 7 (NNN-AGENCIES) – New Zealand needs further and joint efforts to address the increasingly mental health distress among the Asian population caused by COVID-19, a counsellor from a New Zealand mental health provider said today.
The Asian Family Service, New Zealand’s only service provider for people of Asian background, who are affected by mental health issues and gambling harm, witnessed a surge in the demand for its mental health support service, since the COVID-19 outbreak.
Its free multi-language telephone counselling service, Asian Helpline, received a notable increase in the number of calls in Apr, when compared with Apr, 2019. The total duration of calls has also increased by 146.5 percent.
Asian Family Service’s national director, Kelly Feng, said that, its organisation is seeing more diverse family distress, mental health and social care needs, from the Asian people in New Zealand, which likely reflects the broader inequity issues experienced by Asian communities.
“In addition to concerns around race-related bullying and discrimination in schools and workplaces, mental health problems brought to the attention of our clinicians since the COVID-19 outbreak covered a wide range of social groups and issues. For example, we are receiving a higher number of cases involving immigrant Asian women experiencing family violence,” said Feng.
A national survey by the Trace Research, released last week, also indicated a high level of anxiety and nervousness among the New Zealand Asian community.
The research surveyed 580 Asian New Zealanders across the country and found almost 44 percent of them experienced some form of mental distress, since the COVID-19 Level Four lock-down.
Nervousness and anxiety are the most widely experienced (57 percent), followed by little interest or pleasure in doing things (55.2 percent), uncontrollable worrying (47.4 percent) and feeling down and hopeless (44 percent).
Since the COVID-19 outbreak, Asian Family Service has strived to provide help to the vast majority of Asian population in New Zealand within its capacity, such as translation of culturally and linguistically appropriate resources, online and phone counselling, social media and media reach-out. However, Feng urged that a concerted effort nationwide should be done to help the Asian population in New Zealand.
“Asian people who have limited English have found it challenging to navigate an over-complicated system, to access information and services at a time when they are extremely vulnerable. Some of our counsellors have been working on voluntary capacity, to help with translation to support some of the Asian communities.”
“Asian people need to be identified as a priority group in national health/mental health policies and action plans,” she pointed out.– NNN-AGENCIES
